Venture And Tapas

I’m unsure which star rating to give our evening at the Venture. I’d booked a table for five on a Friday night and we were greeted warmly. We were pleasantly surprised when a lovely bubbly waitress came over to ask what we’d like to drink (we’d assumed it would be bar service) and consequently enjoyed some delicious gin and tonics from their decent selection (they had run out of some on the gin menu). In a bit ordered a range of tapas and a paella, and more gins. Half of the dishes were lovely and the other half not. The paella in particular was nearly inedible and the tortilla dry and chewy. It was really disappointing as some of the flavours were great! The patatas bravas were crispy and fresh, gambas nice and garlicy and chorizo in cider tasty. Our waitress however continued to be 5* and ensured that we had a great time and would return (just avoid certain menu items).

We loved this place so much we visited it twice in one day. The staff were absolutely brilliant here, they were friendly and efficient. We loved everything from the decor to the food. The tapas really are delicious. I look forward to returning, I just wish I’d discovered it sooner

Myself and my boyfriend have eaten Tapas here a number of times and absolutely loved it, so much so we both raved about it to other people and I was suggesting it for a work night out. Unfortunately our last visit did not live up to the previous high standard and quality of tapas food we had come to expect... The Octopus was an absolute favourite of ours and even at £12 a plate we still thought it was well worth it. I can 't stress how wrong we were this last visit! The plate full of Octopus was actually 6 small slices served on top of greasy sliced potato. Not only had the portion size reduced but the actual taste of the dish was nowhere near the standards previously. Unfortunately the other 5 dishes, including meatballs, ribs, asparagus and chicken we 'd ordered all proved to dissappoint us even further. The portions were small, the theme of greasy potatoes ran through the whole meal and the previously smokey and delicious sauces and seasoning were now extremely bland and lacking. The only dish we enjoyed was the side salad that we 'd asked for despite it not being on the menu. The side salad was a bowl full and was really needed and appreciated to cut through the grease of the other dishes! We cancelled the last dish we were still waiting for and gave our feedback to the waitress who proceeded to explain the feedback was appreciated and would we take the time to fill in a feedback form. We gladly agreed as thought it was valuable feedback as we 'd really loved the food so much before the obvious change in chef that we hoped it might be taken on board and something done to improve the standards again. I left my phone number and email address hoping we would hear something back.... I 've waited 2 weeks before leaving this review... ..still no contact from The Venture to apologise or even acknowledged our comments. So so dissappointed this used to be one of our favourites but unlikely to return now. I 've made sure everyone I recommended it to previous has been told the food quality and standard has dropped and I certainly don 't feel it is value for money anymore with the Octopus being massively overpriced for what you actually get served.

There isn’t anything fundamentally wrong with this bar it just has no mojo. Husband and I were sitting on the sofas trying to work out why last night it just doesn’t seem to provide a great experience. All we could come up with was the decor being a bit on the cheap side, the shape of the bar area (long and thin bit more welcoming that the main room area where widens out), and also the lack of windows in the main room. One thing that I particularly didn’t like was a Stella and Dot jewellery sale going on. Why????? This is a pub not a pop up shopping arcade. Have never seen this before so am hoping a one off. We keep going in to the Venture due to its location on the way home from town. Not somewhere I would ever suggest being a destination though due to the above.

I must have bought the wrong thing here because everyone is raving about the tapas and I went for a black pudding burger with skin on fries and coleslaw. Ok... it was alright but pretty bland.. I couldn't taste the black pudding but I could see it. Also couldn't taste any aleoli. It looks nice.. And I expected it to be nicer... but I didn't like the oil that the chips were done in and overall I thought it was just kinda greasy. The beer in there was ok but served to me warm. Second one was fine. All in all will I be back? Probably not... nigh on twelve quid for a burger is way too much.